False Pretenses
by Ja'La dh jin
Summary: It wasn't hard getting his magic under control, or even gaining his relatives acceptance when he had. No, the hardest part was keeping the secret hidden...with an even bigger one coming through the post. Eventual Drarry, rating may change... R&R :


_OK, so, this is a new thing for me...It's taken me a long time to gain enough courage to write a HP fanfiction. Anyway, this is the first chapter (obviously) and i have a few more written saved to my computer...hopefully if i get any positive response from it, i can upload the rest at some point in the near future._

_Let me know what you think :)_

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><p>The realisation that the Dursleys of number four Privet Drive hated Harry Potter wasn't a hard one to come by, even for the six year old boy in question. For all his memorable life he hadn't been welcome in the pristine, spotless environment of his relatives' home. Harry knew this; he wasn't stupid, no matter what his relatives thought of him.<p>

As soon as he was thought old enough, the Dursleys set him to work in the garden, innocently sighing to enquiring neighbours telling them how the child just couldn't be trusted in the house. A bad one, from a bad family. Then came the chores, followed by cooking "lessons", by the time he had reached his sixth birthday, Harry was a regular little servant boy.

Harry knew that the other little boys and girls in his class had rooms like Dudley, knew that none of them had to live in a cupboard under the stairs and that each one was allowed to eat meals with their family...to eat meals in general. He also knew that none of the other boys and girls in his class could do all the "freaky" things he could. That was the main reason the Dursleys hated Harry. They could forgive the useless, drunken father and the stuck-up, rather dull mother if only he could be _normal._

Of course, over the past four years and however many months he had lived with the Dursleys, Harry had tried to get his Aunt and Uncle to accept him, had tried to play with his cousin as a toddler, had tried to make them proud by doing well in school but they never saw it that way. He wasn't doing it for them; in their eyes, Harry was only trying to show how much better than them he was. How his freakishness was better than their normalcy.

Harry was doing what he usually did on a Sunday evening. Lying in his locked cupboard, listening to the Dursleys roar with laughter at the latest game show to grace the television.

"And now, for the blue team…" the presenter announced on the television set, "Tell me, what is the capital city of India?"

"New Delhi." Harry whispered in the darkness.

"Dubai!" Uncle Vernon cried from the living room, and even though Harry couldn't see his uncle he knew that spit was flying from his mouth as he attempted to answer around a mouthful of bacon.

"New Delhi is the correct answer!" the applause from the audience was drowned out by Vernon's loud protests about how he was obviously right.

Harry grinned and put another mark on the piece of paper he had stuck to the underside of the stairs.

Running total…Harry, 14...Uncle Vernon, 3.

Not too long afterwards Harry heard the television switch from the game show to one of Aunt Petunia's reality TV programmes which meant it was time for Dudley to go to sleep. Ten minutes of arguing later, Dudley's great weight could be heard tramping up the stairs. The overweight child stamping on each step as hard as he could so that dust would fall onto his quiet cousin.

"Goodnight, Freak!" he cackled.

Vernon followed his son up the stairs mumbling under his breath about good for nothing freaks, although Harry could quite clearly hear him.

Harry's stomach groaned with hunger and the noise echoed around the small cupboard. He hadn't eaten since yesterday lunch, two slices of buttered bread and a glass of milk. Then the day has taken a wrong turn.

It had happened as it usually did; Harry was walking around the neighbourhood avoiding his cousin and the group of boys that followed him. The sun was shining and Harry was almost glad for the oversized clothes he was forced to wear as they made brilliant fans for cooling his face down. Hopping lithely over the park fence, Harry slowly made his way towards the roundabout in the far corner. Quietly passing the time away by pushing himself off the ground, Harry rejoiced in the feel of the wind flying through his hair and when he closed his eyes, he imagined he was flying high above the clouds and away from the Dursleys.

That was how Dudley found him.

His overweight cousin and his gang of cronies loudly announced their entrance to the park and upon seeing their unsuspecting victim, headed in his direction.

Harry slowed the roundabout to a stop and stared fearfully at the group. There was more than usual, six instead of four. Four he could get away from easily, six was pushing his luck.

The customary taunts and mockery was thrown at Harry, his lack of parents, clothes, money and affection being the favourite topics of the day. The group slowly spread out surrounding Harry on all sides and the smaller boy knew that he'd be lucky to get away with just a few bruises.

"Let's get him!" Piers shouted, and all six of the large boys attempted to grab Harry while he was still on the round about.

He felt it happen, like he had before. The fear and anger pulsing through him veins, his heartbeat loud in his ears and short, ragged breaths trying to calm it. Then the warmth, spreading throughout his whole body…amazing and terrifying at the same time. The roundabout started to spin, even though no one had pushed it, faster and faster it spun until all the boys except Harry were clinging to the rusty, metal frame and shouting in fear. Dudley's high-pitched squeal for his mummy drowning out the others.

Harry felt none of the fear, only warmth and happiness. One second he was on the roundabout, the calm at the centre of the storm, and the next he was looking on from ten metres away. Harry panicked.

He knew that as soon as the roundabout stopped and Dudley staggered home he would be in big trouble; his freakishness had acted up again. Harry watched the roundabout slow and come to a gentle stop before his instincts kicked in and he fled back to the relative safety of his cupboard.

Dudley had been in the house for all of ten seconds before he was screaming for his mother and telling the whole story, knowing full well the horror it would cause his mum and the rage it would ignite in his dad. Harry was pulled from the cupboard by his uncle and subjected to an hours worth of belittlement and insults, before being ordered to make dinner and return to his cupboard without food.

Now, as Harry listened to his Aunt turn off the television and make her way up the stairs, he wished once more for the chance to be accepted by the only family he had left. He may not like them very much but he wanted nothing more to sit with them in front of the television without being accused of mischief or freakishness.

The idea came to him slowly, he was after all only six years old, sleep and nutrient deprived but still it came. The only thing that was different between himself and Dudley, despite the weight and stupidity, was his "freakishness". And while Harry did enjoy being able to do the things he did, in general it was to his benefit, the longing for a family and acceptance was stronger. If he couldn't be accepted for who he was, maybe if he became more like them, they would love him.

After a few hours of darkness and silence, excluding the snores form upstairs, Harry had accepted his brilliant plan. The only way he could see of achieving his goal was to get rid of his ability to do the freaky things.

But he didn't know how. Scowling at the ceiling Harry contemplated what to do, he hated not knowing how to do things.

Sitting up and wrapping his thin blanket around his shoulders to keep warm, Harry concentrated on the feeling he got just before anything weird happened. Logically, if he could learn how to make it happen, he could learn how to stop it from happening.

Thinking back on the previous afternoon, it wasn't hard for Harry to bring his cousin's words to the front of his mind. Taunts about his mum and dad, mocking his broken glasses and skinny frame, Harry felt his anger building.

Closing his eyes, Harry could feel the warmth nestled in the centre of his body, pulsating and glowing. It was beautiful, peaceful and Harry almost felt bad about what he was trying to do. Then the image of Aunt Petunia tucking Dudley into bed and kissing him goodnight popped into his head, and the bad feeling was squashed down. Focusing all his attention of the little ball of power, Harry tried to coax it into growing, as it had before. Losing track of time, space and reality, Harry wished with all his heart for the feeling to spread and eventually it yielded. A rush of energy left Harry's whole body tingling, humming with power like he hadn't felt before. Knowing, somehow, that the energy needed to be used for something, Harry thought about the scrape he had received yesterday when Dudley pushed him over in the garden.

As soon as Harry's attention was focused on one thing, the warmth followed. Burning, almost to the point of pain, his knee glowed in the darkness of the cupboard. When the burning stopped, Harry wearily asked the power to stop. As if hesitating, the feeling slowly but steadily retreated back to its source, the bundle of raw energy nestled in his heart.

Panting and sweating slightly, Harry lifted a shaky hand and pulled the string to turn on the light. Pulling his baggy trousers up past his knee, Harry grinned in triumph and amazement when he noticed that the ugly cut and bruises had disappeared.

Exhausted from what had happened, Harry barely had enough energy to switch the light off again, before sleep took him.

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><p><em><span>It's short but i don't really want to overload people with too much at once, the next chapter is where it gets going...i think.<span>_

_Review please...they're like chocolate after a dementor attack ;)_


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